Mark Kendall
AKA Great White

Currently 2011 Ed Roman Is
Constructing A Quicksilver Guitar Shaped In The Original Great White Shark
Design.
The First One Built By BC RICH & J Frog. Mark Donated To The Hard Rock Cafe
Mark Had immediate second thoughts after the guitar was gone He
commissioned Ed Roman to build a newer Better Version Of The Original

FAVORITE ALBUMS - ZZ Top's TRES HOMBRES, AC/DC's BACK IN
BLACK,
Johnny Winter's STILL ALIVE AND WELL,
Led Zeppelin's
LED ZEPPELIN I

FAVORITE ESCAPE - Playing guitar, pool, golf.

HOBBIES - Watching old TV series while on my couch.

One Of My Favorite Great White Shows was
when they did the Joe Piscopo special.. Joe does the
Sinatra Song in full Sinatra character " Witchcraft"
Great White rocks the livin' shit out of it... Awesome

Ed Roman

The 1980s Great White started their career as Dante Fox,
playing their first gig in 1981 at The Troubadour in
Hollywood, California. After recording several demos, the
band chose as manager Alan Niven, who had worked for the
independent distributor Greenworld in Torrance, California
and had dealt with Mötley Crüe's debut self-release. Niven
suggested the name change from Dante Fox after seeing singer
Jack Russell introduce guitarist Mark Kendall during his
solo as "Mark Kendall, the Great White", due to his
naturally white-blonde hair, white Fender Telecaster guitar,
white jumpsuit, and white Capezio shoes. In 1982, founding
members Mark Kendall, Jack Russell, drummer Gary Holland,
and bassist Lorne Black recorded and released a 5-song EP,
Out of the Night, on the independent label Aegean formed by
Niven. Niven then convinced the Los Angeles radio station KMET to begin adding songs from the EP to it's playlist in
heavy rotation. KLOS-FM soon did the same. The band suddenly
went from drawing 100 people to a local club to drawing
thousands in L.A. concert halls such as Perkins Palace in
Pasadena, The Palace in Hollywood and the Country Club in
Reseda. As an unsigned act, Great White headlined at Six
Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia playing to 6,250 people.
Near the end of 1983, EMI America signed the band and
subsequently released Great White's eponymous debut album in
early 1984. The band immediately toured the UK supporting
Whitesnake's Slide It In tour and the entire US and Canada
opening for Judas Priest's Defenders of the Faith tour. Shot
in the Dark, their follow-up independent release, marked the
arrival of drummer Audie Desbrow. By the time Capitol
Records signed the band and reissued Shot in the Dark,
keyboardist-guitarist Michael Lardie had come aboard. After
the release of Shot in the Dark, Great White hit the road
with Dokken and was on the verge of even bigger success.

Great White as a quartet in 1986. From left: Lorne Black,
Mark Kendall, Jack Russell, Audie Desbrow. The band hit the
mainstream in 1987 when they released Once Bitten..., which
featured the hits "Rock Me" and "Save Your Love". Once
Bitten... was certified platinum in April 1988.

"Save Your Love" (1987) Written By Stephan Williams
A song from Once Bitten... Great White's first platinum
selling album.

The band followed up with ...Twice Shy in 1989. The album
included their biggest hit, "Once Bitten, Twice Shy", a
cover of a UK hit single by Ian Hunter. They received a
Grammy Award nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance. The
album was certified platinum in July 1989 and then double
platinum in September of that same year. The model Bobbie
Brown (also known for being in Warrant's "Cherry Pie" video)
appeared in the video for "Once Bitten, Twice Shy". They
finished off the 80s touring in support of ...Twice Shy as
headliners and with some best known bands, such as Bon Jovi.

In 1990, the band featured in the heavy metal video series
Hard 'N' Heavy containing music, concert footage and
interviews. The video included Slash and Duff from Guns N'
Roses appearing with the band at a Children of the Night
Benefit concert in L.A., the performance helping to raise
money for housing abused homeless children. Both bands
shared the same manager, Alan Niven at the time.

The 1990s The band continued into the next decade
performing the song "House of Broken Love" at the American
Music Awards in January 1990. In March, Great White embarked
on their first tour of Japan. They returned to the United
States for the Memorial Day weekend festival dubbed The
World Series of Rock, which featured Whitesnake, Skid Row,
Bad English, and Hericane Alice. Great White recorded two
more albums for Capitol Records, Hooked, which was certified
gold, and Psycho City. In support of Hooked, Great White did
a tour as headliner tour, had a guest slot with German metal
band Scorpions and travelled to Europe and Japan. Psycho
City was followed by a U.S. tour with Kiss.

Capitol issued the compilation The Best of Great White:
1986–1992 in 1993, when Great White had already departed the
label to begin work on their next studio release, Sail Away.
Before the release of the album, Great White spent seven
months on the road headlining clubs. According to Lardie, it
was "the longest stint we ever did without a break.
Great White kept up the pace once Sail Away was released on
Zoo Records in 1994, touring the USA several times over the
following year and a half. Their next release, Let It Rock,
was released in 1996 through yet another label, Imago
Records

In 1999, the band released "Can't Get There from Here" and
embarked on a tour with Ratt, Poison, and L.A. Guns. The
album featured the single "Rollin' Stoned", which managed to
chart at No. 8 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks
chart.

Break-up (2000-2001) In a memo dated 20 January 2000 Mark
Kendall announced he was leaving Great White, shortly
thereafter both Audie Desbrow and Sean McNabb left Great
White. Kendall was replaced by guitarist Matthew Johnson.
Desbrow, clearly very unhappy with the financial state of
the band posted a tirade on his website lambasting Jack
Russell and Michael Lardie, while claiming to have been
"fired" from Great White. Meanwhile, it was rumored that
Sean McNabb was fired for going to management and asking to
see the accounting books. Despite only having one
original member left, the band announced plans to begin work
on a new album in late 2000. Early in the process, some of
the new songs were played for John Kalodner at Columbia
Records. It was mutually agreed that the "magic was gone"
and the band decided their heart was not in the recording
process. They subsequently left Columbia Records and
discontinued work on the new album.

On 5 November 2001
Jack Russell announced the end of Great White, stating
that he was moving on, and that Great White would play one
final farewell show on 31 December 2001 at the Galaxy
Theatre in Santa Ana, CA. Both Kendall and McNabb
rejoined the band for the farewell show, recorded for a live
CD entitled Thank You...Goodnight! released by Knight
Records. The live album includes two new tracks, "Back to
the Rhythm" and "Play On" from their discontinued studio
sessions, both of which would ultimately wind up on their
reunion album Back to the Rhythm in 2007.

Fake White (2002-2005)In late 2002, in part due to
his failure to attract good audiences while on the road with
his solo band, Jack Russell contacted Kendall, who himself
was struggling to gain an audience on his own. Kendall
agreed to play some dates with Russell's band, allowing
Russell to use the name Great White once again. Billed
as "Jack Russell's Great White," the tour was to consist
primarily of classic songs from the Great White catalog with
some of Russell's solo work mixed in. Eventually, more dates
were added and the tour extended through the early months of
2003.

Station Nightclub Fire Main article: The Station
nightclub fire
The band returned to the national spotlight on 20 February
2003. At the beginning of a Great White performance at The
Station night club in Rhode Island, pyrotechnics used by the
band's crew created a spray of sparks that ignited the foam
soundproofing material in the ceiling around the stage. One
hundred people including the band's guitarist Ty Longley,
died in the fire that followed. In 2008 the band agreed to
pay $1 million to survivors and victims' relatives of the
fire while admitting to no wrongdoing. This amount also
covers former tour manager Daniel Biechele along with the
band members, record label, and management as it existed at
the time of the fire. The settlement was the maximum
allowed under the band's insurance plan. Victims had
previously received $3.8 million raised by United Way of
America.

Though the media referred to the band as "Great White"
following the tragedy in Rhode Island, the band was
officially performing under the moniker of "Jack Russell's
Great White" at the time of the incident. In fact, prior to
the fire, the band's official website posted a message
stating that Great White had not re-formed. It's unclear
when the band began officially going by "Great White" again.

Great White played their first full show following the Rhode
Island tragedy on 22 July, starting a benefit tour for the
survivors and victims of the fire. The band toured until
2005 to raise funds for the Station Family Fund, which had
been set up to help the victims of the tragedy. In late
2005, citing "medical reasons", the band canceled the second
half of their summer tour. The "medical reasons" turned
out to be Jack Russell's addictions to alcohol and cocaine.
He would later detail a particular low point of being caught
by his ex-wife smoking crack in a laundry room. This was the
end of this version of Great White, as Jack Russell entered
rehabilitation and did not perform again until 2007.
Russell used the year of 2006 to get sober and get a
facelift that was detailed on Extra TV. Russell later
referred to this incarnation of Great White as "Fake White",
saying "It still sounded like Great White, but not – almost
like we were doing a cover of ourselves.

Back to the Rhythm (2006-2008) Talk of a reunion of Great White began in a
2004 interview, where Jack Russell told to Metal Express
Radio: "I spoke with Michael [Lardie], we threw that around
a bit, and thought that sounds like a cool idea, it'd be
fun. I'm pretty positive it's gonna happen... probably next
year We talked to some other people, and [former
drummer] Audie [Desbrow] would not be a person I would want
to play with ever again in my life. There were some bridges
burned there that I just can’t forgive, and I’m a very
forgiving person. I just can’t let that one go. I have to
stand up for myself...". Russell's stance towards
Desbrow seemed to have changed course by 2006 when he told
Mitch Lafon: "I talked to Michael Lardie the other day and
he is into doing it. I just want to get hold of Tony Montana
and Audie Desbrow. I think that would be very special for
our 25th anniversary tour to have the same guys... we
haven't played together in a very long time". Later in
2006, guitarist Mark Kendall officially announced that Great
White had re-formed its classic lineup. The re-formed
lineup of Russell, Kendall, Lardie, McNabb and Desbrow
played their first date together in more than 5 years on 27
January 2007 at the Key club in Hollywood performing in the
Harpseals.org Benefit Concert for the Seals 2007. The band
continued to tour throughout the rest of the year.

During the band's recent tour in the UK, vocalist Jack
Russell commented that "I think I'm enjoying it more now
than the last time we were over, I think the older you get,
at least for me anyway, you appreciate more and more. This
is the twilight of our career at best, and any time we get
after this is icing on the cake, it's a gift. It's been 25
or 26 years now since the band became Great White, and I've
been playing with my guitarist since '78 when I was 17 years
old, I'm 47 now, so that's 30 years".

Rising (2008-)In 2008, bassist Sean McNabb left Great White
to concentrate on a career in theater and acting. McNabb was
promptly replaced with Scott Snyder (Ramos, Accomplice).
McNabb is now a member of Dokken.

Great White released their latest album, Rising, on 13 March
2009 in Europe via Frontiers Records and on 21 April in the
USA.
As of 2010, Jani Lane (Warrant) is filling in for Jack
Russell, who is currently recuperating from surgery after
suffering a perforated bowel. Terry Ilous (XYZ) replaced
Jack Russel at the Coach House during the summer of 2010 and
Paul Shortino (Rough Cutt, Quiet Riot, King Kobra) filled in
for Russell when Great White performed at Stockholm Rock Out
Festival in September.